July 4 Greetings from New York City where Mammon blots out the sun and the poor huddled masses are harangued by newcomers from the Peoples' Republic.

Central Park was conceived as a place of refuge for Manhattan's toiling masses, a placewhere a factory hand could sit under a tree and appreciate nature while eating his lunch, a place where tenement kids could climb the world's shortest mountain and spend a Saturday in the sun.

Money talks sunlight walks. Now the streets near Central Park offer refuge for scared, laundered and stolen money from all over the world.

So rich people everywhere are buying apartments on billionaire"s row which goes down from 59th Street to 53rd Street with no sign of a let up. They feel that this is a safe way to stote money. The typically unoccupied apartments range in price from @ $4 million to @ $60 million. A few miles south a penthouse in the one time tallest building on earth is said tobe worth $120 million.

Then there is the influx of trust fund kids into Brooklyn, the artists who'd rather starve here than anywhere else on earth the mere multimillionaires too.